XXX Men

Once upon a not-so-long-ago time, big-screen male nudity—Will Ferrell's butt, anyone?—was played for laughs. This is no longer true. Don't believe us—try watching _True Blood _without seeing naked-vampire man parts. It seems that sexual objectification has gone testicular. One woman explains why it's just not working for her

If you’ve been to the movies at all this year, or if you own a TV, you have probably been accosted by Ryan Gosling’s nipples (in Crazy Stupid Love).

Or Justin Timberlake’s dimpled, shapely ass (Friends with Benefits). Or Alexander Skarsgârd’s long, fatless Swedish vampire everything (on True Blood, where the man couldn’t keep his pants on with a staple gun). And get ready, if you care for serious films about sex addiction and creative oral sex, to spend an hour and a half staring at Michael Fassbender’s admirable junk. The sort of thing most men avoid directly looking at even while safely at home watching YouPorn can now be seen in mid company while eating Jujyfruits. A girl could be excused for believing a kind of ballcentric sexual devolution was afoot.

Ewan McGregor

** (Young Adam)**

"I try not to limit myself in all respects. Sexuality is just one of them. I could understand saying, 'I would never do gratuitous nudity.' Wait—no. I probably would. I'd probably be quite happy to. I remember getting a kind of rush out of [going full-frontal] that first time, a slight feeling of power about it, you know?"

Thomas Jane

** (Hung)**

"I now know what it's like to be a woman, because I now have to say during a conversation, 'Hey, my eyes are up here!'"

"I'm not a prude at all. I shot a very graphic scene with a man. I am from Sweden, and it's different there. If it makes sense, I'll just do it. So far, it's made sense every single time I've got naked or made out on the show."

And then there's the problem of the male erection. Women's sex bits lack the mood-ring quality of the penis, which makes them much more versatile, acting-wise. When you see a penis on-screen, you can't help but wonder about its mood. And what got it in that mood in the first place. Or what didn't. Gee, he doesn't seem to be that excited to be naked with Mila Kunis. (Because, of course, the boner is the last frontier: It's now the only thing that separates HBO from Vivid Video.) And women, being more prone to compassion, will start wondering if it's being treated well. Was the Humane Society on-set to make sure no dogs were embarrassed? Who's applying the makeup to ensure a perfectly matte scrotum? How was the walk from the trailer, and did a set full of teamsters watch? if the thing looks especially bashful, you can't help but worry, "Poor Viggo! He looks cold."

Finally, we must confront the patent appearance of the stuff itself. An actress showing her breasts is something that can be done tastefully and artfully. I don't know if that can or will ever be said for balls. I'm not going to lie and say I wouldn't enjoy stumbling upon Alexander Skarsgârd without clothes at, say, one of those natural Swedish hot springs. But I just can't ever conceive of seeing his coin purse on TV covered in white vampire makeup and not wanting to cover my face with my hands.

Maybe all my trepidation will disappear with time. Maybe all it requires for me to see a scrotum and think, Delish! I'd like to watch that for five minutes, is a few years of desensitization. A few years in which watching the camera slow-motion-molest naked actors becomes as commonplace in mainstream cinema as it is in, say, French yogurt commercials. Until that happens, though, I'll remain unaroused, spending the nude scenes contemplating whether that old trope about the camera adding ten pounds has finally been to someone's advantage.

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